zampano

The Creation Museum - An Essay

Imagine, if you will, a taped up box. At any given time, chances are equally good that it is a box of cookies as it is a box of anthrax. This is the way of the universe. You never really know anything because it could just as easily be something as something else in a different plane of reality, a different plane to which you could easily cross. To me, the Creation Museum is a totally different plane of reality. A plane where around every corner I am again stupefied by the things I am forced to see. Idiocy and blind observance at every turn.

Let’s start from the top, though. Don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

I first heard about the Creation Museum from Rob Sheridan, through his blog “Demonbaby,” where he wrote a thoughtful, albeit a little shallow piece about the museum where he delved more into its creation-no pun intended-than its content. It was a fantastic commentary but it seemed that Rob, himself-again, no pun intended- suffered the same thing I did upon exiting: total and complete brain lock. I do not know how much time he allowed between his visit and his writeup, but I can say with almost complete certainty that it wasn’t two months. I believe I’ve allowed enough time to not only recover from the time I spent there, but to process and digest the information that was rigorously spewed at me the two or three hours that I spent there.

My original desire to visit was not so much one to insult and make fun, but to observe and attempt to understand the mindset and beliefs of the people who took everything in there as truth. I am a tolerant person. As long as you let me have my way, I am keen to live and let live. While the motivations of my partner-in-mock may have been slightly more askew than mine, I know that in some way he wanted to go for the same reason that I did. It just seemed, to both of us, that a place like this could not actually exist as it was described to us. It was like something out of a nightmare. No one actually went there. It was just a place, like any other museum. People went occasionally but there weren’t flocks and flocks of people there every day. We, both of us, are cynics, but neither of us wanted to accept that it was there, it was real, and it was packed nearly every day of the week.

So, my partner and I decided to make the trip on July 3rd, 2010. A lovely day, we got an early start after deciding that sleeping would only hinder our ability to get an early start, but that made little difference because of traffic. In our defense, we did not realize until we got back that the next day was Independence Day, possibly from our lack of sleep the night prior, or our general excitement for the trip ahead. Also, he is a terrible navigator who fell asleep on the job several times. If ever he offers to go on a trip with you, do not let him do any of the navigating. All in all, the trip there was more or less uneventful, despite getting lost once or twice. 

Upon pulling into the parking lot, the first thing I noticed was how packed it was. We drove in the parking lot for five minutes and found only one parking space, all the way at the back. It was the first glimpse at the crowds that we’d be observing upon entering. As we walked toward the building, the first thing that caught my attention was the bronze sculpture of some kind of long-necked dinosaur. My dino-zoology is a bit rusty.

Upon stepping inside, we were welcomed by crowds of brightly dressed people, clamoring for a place in line to buy their outrageously overpriced tickets, as well as sweet, sweet air-conditioning. The entrance hall was dull, the windows overlooking the parking lot dimmed to allow only comfortable levels of light in. For the first time in a very long time, I felt nervous. I began to question my ability to safely feign complacency and calm. I was giddy from a lack of sleep, on a hell of a caffeine high from the several cups of tea I had drank the morning before we left, and in a place where one ill placed “God dammit” could have be kicked out and probably beaten by men with gigantic crucifixes, and God dammit do I like to curse.

The employees appeared to be nice enough. All of them wore a seemingly sincere smile, most wore placid yellow shirts and beige vests. As I approached the counter, the dear old woman who took my card requested my ID. Seeing as how I’ve lost about 100 pounds and had my hair cut short since that photo was taken, I could understand her surprised upon looking at the laminated card. “This is you?” “Yes. Lost weight since then.” “Boys shouldn’t have long hair anyway. You look much better now.” “Thanks,” I said as I eagerly took my card and stepped back slowly. She gave off the vibe of a grandmother who tries a bit too hard to get her grandchildren to go to Church. The kind of person who would demand that a homosexual be booted from the family.

The anteroom that led to the rest of the museum is specifically of note because of its animatronic dinosaurs. If memory serves, this was the only place where the dinosaurs were animated. Elsewhere, it was simply animatronic humanoids, such as Methuselah, Adam and Eve. Overhead, a Brachiosaurus tirelessly ground leaves in its mouth. Baby, vegetarian, Tyrannosaurs frolicked with a human child who endlessly looked back and forth with lifeless demon eyes, and nowhere was it explained why these gigantic dinosaurs, with mouths full of sharp, rounded and obviously carnivorous teeth were wasting their time with vegetation when there was a perfectly helpless and delicious, albeit slightly mentally-deficient looking human being sitting, playing with dirt, not 10 feet away. 

Along the wall opposite the Tyrannosaurs and small human were birds, caged in slender plexiglass niches, clearly unable to spread their wing. I couldn’t help but wonder how the poor birds were fed. There didn’t appear to be any cubbies or crawl spaces where a person could reach in and deliver food. In fact, I don’t know how the birds got in there at all. Maybe God did it. Anyhoo, again there was no explanation as to why the birds were there or how they got there, they just were, which seems oddly out of step for the Creation Museum. The whole experience is meant to convey not only why we are here, but how we got here, and, when you think about it, they are simply doing insult to their religion, into which they’ve poured their lives. Religion is supposed to be about why we are here, and what makes us worthy of being here. God created us, so obviously we are chosen for something. Why these individuals feel the need to lash out against others is beyond me. Why do they need to explain anything? Religion is religion and science is science. When you intertwine the two, nothing makes sense and everyone gets confused as a result.

Imagine, again, the box from the beginning of this essay. Now imagine that I told you that the box was there since before you and I were around. All we could do was attempt to discern by its presence why it is there, but you needed to know how it got there. You can never know, but you still feel the burning need to know, so you make up explanations and force them to fit what you already do know. It doesn’t matter how it got there. It’s there, there’s no taking it away, so it’s a waste of time and energy. I won’t understand why you need an explanation, but you need one.

The whole time I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed about my own beliefs. One of the biggest parts about believing in science is that my beliefs are subject to change at any moment. I was, for a moment, envious of their people. I believe in nothing like they so steadily believe in their religion, and I kind of wanted that faith. To know a life of absolute certainty was for a time appealing, until I remembered that these people essentially believe in Santa Claus.

What followed was a series of rooms that only had one clear overlying theme: God, who is American, did it, everyone who believes otherwise is wrong. The beginning of the tour was simply an overview of basic human existence: unwed mothers, abortions, drug addicts and war. You know, the day to day stuff. A pair of interestingly sculpted mannequins, a boy and girl, stood in one of the smaller rooms in this section. “COME ON. LET ME SHOW YOU THE REST.” says the girl. “I NEVER HEARD THIS BEFORE IN SCHOOL.” remarks the boy. Two snare drums and a hihat fall off a cliff. Much mirth was enjoyed. Oh, wait, they’re serious. Despite the questionable grammar, the terrifying build of the mannequins and absurd portrayal of how young people speak, these people were serious. And the sad part is that there seemed to be people of that persuasion all around my partner and I. The slightly faithless being led by the faithful. For every adult we saw, there must have been three children of ages between 3 and 16. This is more than just a little disconcerting, at least to me.

Another room contained a wall demolished by a weight, labeled “MILLIONS OF YEARS” with no explanation as to existence or meaning. What was the wall supposed to represent? And what of the wall itself? I had a feeling we were in for more of this indiscriminate absurdity before it was going to be relieved, and it took quite a bit of willpower, but I mustered the courage to press on. Among the other sillies that I observed amid the other rooms in this early section of the museum was my favorite piece of all: a door, with at least 5 locks, with “THE WORLD IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE” carved into it. Because you know that somewhere, this has happened. And you know that somewhere is the place where this particular door was molded and carved. 

I swear, this place is one giant “Poe’s Law” demonstration. I honestly could not tell if these people were serious or whether this entire thing was a big practical joke. I wasn’t sure if I was buying into it and the other people around me were more aware than I, or if I was as correct in assuming this place was Bizarro World. Everything I know and hold to be true was being vehemently peed upon by Ken Ham and his merry band of miscreants. This probably contributed to my inability to really talk or write about the Creation Museum for two months. I was so confused by what I observed. I felt like a child being told that the tooth fairy does not actually exist and that my teeth are actually worthless. 

Had I been faithful for any part of my life, I can confidently say that this place would have crushed that faith. I don’t know about my associate, but I really observed this place as a demonstration of how weak a person’s faith can be, and that made me feel sorry for the people who went there to learn. Faith is about belief. It shouldn’t need to be proven to you if you believe in it. To me, there are two reasons for a place like this to exist:

1. Indoctrination. Plain and simple.

2. You are uncertain about your faith, and to have it reaffirmed you need to be told why you should believe it.

Both of these reasons, are pardon the parlance, bullshit. For one, it shouldn’t matter what other believe, at all, ever. It is your life and theirs. They are not intertwined, their beliefs have no effect on yours unless you make them have an effect. Secondly, if you are so uncertain about your faith that you need someone else to tell you what to believe, you are doing it wrong. If nothing else, the biggest thing I’ve never understood about the faithful is how they go their lives being told what to believe by someone else, be it a preacher or reverend or rabbi or really anyone. Many times, from what I’ve seen, these individuals who listen believe their “teachers” to be speaking the word of God. Occasionally, those faithful believe that God has spoken to those teachers directly. Why? Why are you not worthy to talk to God yourself? Why do you need other people to tell you what to believe? Why not discover what you believe yourself, on your own, through research and soul searching?

I am not so misguided to believe that all faithful people are unintelligent. Not by a longshot. I know at least a dozen people who regularly attend church who are some of the smartest, most open minded people I know. However, I will say this: faithful people, to me, seem to be unsure about themselves and their life, which makes sense. They need a constant in which to believe. I can understand that, and hell, I can sympathize. What I do not understand and do not sympathize is that they go to other people to discover themselves and their beliefs. It just does not make sense to me, but what do I know?

Moving on. The next series of rooms contained a collection of religious artifacts put together simply to give some semblance of credence to what was going to be shown next. Among these were scrolls or copies of scrolls from the Torah, and other things of which I did not get pictures and cannot now remember. Of course, Ohioans and Kentuckians can read those scrolls, so we are told what it says: the scroll in particular tells Noah’s story, and it is approximately 300 years old. I’m not necessarily questioning the veracity of that statement, but you have to admit that, while the rifle is indeed loaded and active, dogs can look up.

Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: the area where they so horrendously butcher history that I almost felt as though I was in a meat packing plant. Honestly, I don’t have much to tell you about it. There was very little in the way of visuals. Most of them were miniatures, behind glass and absolutely ridiculous. My favorite was the part where little miniature people were trapped on a rock, slowly being overcome by not only rising water, but tigers with bloody teeth and fur. Essentially, these people believe that the Great Flood caused all of the Earth’s terraforming, and that all of the sediment which has been proven to have been laid out over the course of millions of years was created in 40 days. The great ark had two of each species of animal, and despite the sheer impossibility for a species to regain numbers and thrive from one mother pair, the world was repopulated in its entirety.

If you’re wondering, and I know you must be, there were dinosaurs on the ark. See, what happened to them was that they were killed off during the middle ages, as dragons. You heard me. And no, I am not going to elaborate on that, because the sheer ridiculousness of this makes me want to do something I don’t want to do.

At around this point, though, the museum kind of teeters off. We were shown a film, called “The Last Adam,” which was essentially a big Jesus circle-jerk. A man in nice clothing, sitting in the middle of the desert, spoke teary-eyed of Jesus and his sacrifice, and how we must spend our lives making sure that his sacrifice was not in vain. A woman in front of us raised her hands to heaven. Another woman seated directly in front of me cried. I almost cried, too, but for completely different reasons. The whole thing seemed forced. It was as though they had run out of ideas halfway through designing the museum experience and simply wanted to take up half an hour of your time before they allowed you to leave.

Upon exiting the small 50 seat theater, we were required to take cards that read:

Jesus, You died upon a cross

And rose again to save the lost

Forgive me now of all my sin

Come be my Saviour, Lord and Friend

Change my life and make it new

And help me, Lord, to live for You

Today I have received Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of my life.

I was, essentially, forced to be Christian that day. Their mistake was making it signable, and I and my partner escaped before employees began handing out pens and asking people to sign the cards. 

At this point, we entered a small courtyard with a coffee shop and snack bar. It was here that it would be assumed you were in the middle of the experience, but in reality it was the end. We exited into a gift shop that lead straight to the anteroom, and the exit. In some way or another, I was disappointed that it was over so suddenly. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the other ridiculous claims that they would make, but it seemed as though they had run out of ideas. In their defense, it was probably the perfect length. I was beginning to lose patience and sanity, and much more would have driven me across the edge and into the void of furious vengeance on behalf of the entire scientific community.

The entire time I spent there, though, was strange. It was as though I had stepped into another world. I am as cynical as they get, but even I was flabbergasted by the people just eating this up. The drive home, my partner and I hardly discussed what we had seen, and I think that the air, time, and space in that building had something to do with it. We both learned more about our average fellow human being than we really wanted to, and I think both of us were so shocked and stunned by it that we couldn’t really think of words proper enough to discuss it. 

In summation, it was a trip worth making at least once, but thrice at the most. While I do not truly consider any faithful to be “enemies,” it’s good to know the kind of crazy you may one day deal with, so the phrase “know your enemy” should be your main motivation for attending. If you go for the same reasons that I did, keep your mouth shut and you won’t run into any trouble. Approach with an open mind, and please be level headed about it. When you act upon arguing religion and science with someone, you make us look just as bad to them as they do to us. 

Fuck.

Fuck everything.

Fuck Shamokin, Pennsylvania.

Fuck money.

Fuck no money.

Fuck old computer.

Fuck bout of creativity with no way to bring it to fruition.

Fuck Reaktor.

Fuck no Reaktor.

Fuck Kristina.

Fuck no Kristina.

Fuck misery.

Fuck loneliness.

Fuck people.

Fuck being sick.

Fuck vomiting.

Fuck.

Today I cannot escape the feeling that something is wrong with me. I know that something is wrong, but that is different. I am different. I am different all the time, but today I feel more different. One card short. One step slightly to the left. I feel like I am being wasted here. I can’t do anything. I want to play a piano. I want to go out to eat. I want to go to the studio. I want to sleep in my bed. I want to meet someone. I want to be with the people who mean something to me. I love my brother. I love my niece. Hell, sometimes I love Jess, and I tolerate her son, but I hate this place with such an incredible passion. I didn’t know I was capable of such dislike. It’s like a pit in the heart of me that grows with every hour of exposure. 

I am working on an older song today, trying to see if I can actually bring it to fruition for the new album. I have 4 songs in the works currently, including this one. This album is going to be more esoteric. More niche. I am trying to balance electronics with acoustic instruments this time around, instead of it relying wholly on one sound or another. Modulo is making a strong appearance so far. One 12-string acoustic. I can’t say for sure right now where I am going. I was hoping to be able to write more “playable” songs, but after reflection I decided that I need to write what I am feeling, and not to corner myself.

I am hoping to get a guest or two on this album, as well. Seeing about having Pervez Taufiq from Living Syndication guest some vocal tracks, Cody Gratner doing a bit of programming and might ask Stretta to loan some modular work. Can’t say for sure, again. We’ll see.

Fuck, I want something to do.

Album Progress No. 2

I don’t plan on making this a daily thing, but I have at least one more thing to write about now before I am out of ideas for the time being. Today I’ll be discussing structure and arrangement and how it pertains to the lyrical and story content.

Structure of another potential song from the album, this one is tentatively titled “Through.” To maintain some air of mystery, I’ve blurred the track and audio file names, but the first thing you’ll notice is the oodles of loops located herein. In truth, all but 2 of the tracks are going to be loops in the final arrangement. When I began writing this song, a year ago, I got about 81 bars into it before I had no idea what to do with the song. After that, it simply collected dust until about a month ago, when I was struck with the strongest desire to work on it further.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. It seemed like the only option was to loop the entire intro as the first, and then wing it, so I did. It turned out not to be a bad idea, but there wasn’t enough filler. Even with vocals, it seemed like it was the same thing looped, so I decided to add some elements that weren’t in the original version and were almost out of left field. In the first version, there is very little guitar, but during the chorus. It’s a simple 3 chord alternation, in E minor over a really nasty resonant synth and a percussion section that builds like the Japanese. 

Here, listen.

That’s the entirety of the demo, just because I like being nice. The intro builds over the first 80 or so bars. The verse continues practically throughout the entire song from bar 81 until about bar 183. The lyrics I have written are rough and won’t be posted until I have a good draft done.

The thing to which I wanted to draw the most attention is the end of the song, particularly 183 to the end. Up to that point, this song is one of the most heavy, angry, violent and loud Aldaraia songs written. Lyrically, it’s about recognizing chains that bind you and struggling, and eventually breaking them. It’s the point at which the characters realize they are in a prison, and not a place they believed would originally provide them succor. As I may have mentioned in the previous blog, I like to fit my music to the meaning behind them. Structurally, this song is made to be the realization of one’s bind, and the struggle to escape.

The first build, i.e. the bars 1 to 81, are implied to be the main character waking to find himself in chains, metaphorically of course. The louder and dirtier the sounds get, the more he realizes his predicament. The verse is his consciousness telling him where he is, and that he needs to get out, so the build begins again. The heavy guitar chords come in, signifying the beginning of the struggle. The center guitar applies structure and chords. Fighting harder. The right guitar follows. Pulling to the right. The left guitar. Pulling to the left. Then it ends. Escape.

That is not what I want to stress, though. What I want to stress is the end, and how it applies to the story, and how it shifts the structure and tonal balance in such a fundamental way that I’ve become comfortable with the repetition. After the struggle, or chorus, three clean guitars come in. Originally, the clean guitars each represented one of the main characters rejoicing at their new freedom, but as I further developed the lyrics and this part of the story, I realized that what I had really wanted and had created was the uncertainty that would have manifested in the character after his escape.

The idea of a person becoming institutionalized is not new. It’s been tossed about in government for reasons against long-term sentences for convicts. In that way, I think it applies just as much to anyone forced to be in a certain social situation for a length of time. The main character does not know how to live outside of what is, essentially, slavery. He was not a slave, but he was kept diluted, drugged, isolated and stagnate, and upon escaping cannot remember how to live alone or without the care of those “higher” than he. The clean guitars signify that confusion, but under that confusion there is also the anger of his remembered entrapment, and his desire to escape, showed by the tambourine and kick looping until the end. 

The overarching point for this particular blog is that structure should be more than just what is simples and sounds the most correct. Structure should be a direct reflection of your mindset, and what you are attempting to say. Intro/Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus/End is not the only way to write a song, and it’s nowhere near as creative as defining your own structure each time. 

For this song, a friend recorded tambourine samples for me, which I cut and looped with EXS24. The kick is a heavily modified sample I pulled from one of my earlier songs. The tabla and timbale both are samples I found floating around online, open source of course. Synths were all made in Reaktor. Guitars were all my Agile AL-2000 Silverburst, directly into my interface and the amps were modeled with Logic’s Guitar Amp Pro.

Album Progress No. 1

Today’s blog revolves entirely around an older song, its lyrical content, and its drums.

You see, I am pretty sentimental about my music. While I write songs and albums that have to do with a greater whole, each particular piece of music has a piece of me in it, whether that be a dream or a lover or a feeling I’ve had. I don’t consider myself the best lyricist, which is why I think I use so many instrumentals (see: Eleven Satellites and (h)always). I can write fairly well for the music that I create, and that simply stems from my vocabulary. I don’t attempt to rhyme, I use larger, more complicated words that are VERY difficult to fit into a melody. I write lyrics how I speak, and that makes it not only difficult to come up with melody but difficult to put things succinctly instead of elaborating in large paragraphs.

For the particular topic of this post, what is tentatively titled “Branches,” it has been a different story. Without wanting to give too much away, the subject of this song is a point in the story in which the characters begin making progress through the “maze” that confines them to their “prison.” It establishes, more clearly, the links between the three characters, as well as the first steps of their journey. See here:

We three, bound in blood and journey search for peace in these tangled branches. Deeply, we tread lightly, quickly. Boundless, we seek to make escape.

Not the entirety of the lyrics, but the first “verse”*. Whereas “And When The Sky Was Opened” was more melancholic, and more pertaining to one character instead of three, the concept of this album, and most thoroughly fleshed out in this song, is the ties that bring these characters together, and how they can be so easily severed. “And When The Sky Was Opened” showed the fundamental change in the main-est of the main characters, this album will show what caused the change. There is a lot of ground to cover, and as a result, this album will be more emotionally draining for me. The entire album, nay, the whole overarching story is metaphor, and as such has more emotional ties than I would let you believe otherwise. As I said, each song has, and in many ways, is a piece of me.

Ah, but enough about that emotional bullshit. Let’s talk about hitting things! Wait, no I phrased that wrong. Let’s talk about pretending to hit things! With computers! And buttons! Science, industry, technology! Anyway, I hate programming drums, and there is only one thing I hate more than programming drums, and that is tracking live drums, so I am kind of shafted. I have to program my drums. And I have to do it well, or else all the pickers of nit will give me shit about it. As with most things (except for being happy, being a boyfriend, and being comfortable), I have become awesome at programming drums as a result of repetitive motion and constant exposure. Case in point:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1017227/drums.mp3

The drums from the song I’ve discussed this time around. This best exemplifies how I program drums. I make a basic loop, add things until it’s got a solid, fairly complex structure, loop it so I have a skeleton onto which I can assemble the pieces of the song, and when I have tracking all done, I go through the loops and edit them. Here is a typical piano roll, in this case outlining the chorus and verse drum parts for this song:

Nothing too fancy or spectacular, at least not until I get down to the final stages of programming. 

Basically, the point I am trying to make is that you have to take the bad with the good. When you become good at something you hate, the things you enjoy are that much more enjoyable, and the final project becomes absolutely worth the time. I love making music more than anything else, so much so that the worst parts of it, like programming drums, are better than the best parts of the days not spent doing something musical. That either means I am insane, or I love my job, or both. I don’t know which and, truthfully, I really don’t care to find out.

*I don’t write in a chorus/verse format. Budapest is the only song I can remember of mine that has a repeating chorus. 

Album Progress Posts

I’ve decided to start using this blog as a diary, of sorts. Because I want to get more people into the music I am making, as well as document the process by which I create it, I am going to use the tumblr as a place to share progress on the creation of the new album. I’ll be posting demos, clips, tutorials, patches, samples, as well as simple elaboration on the creation of the various songs I’ll be shaping for the next album.

Nothing right now, I am still crafting the first post.

Next Album Update

For those interested.

I am working on 12 demos off and on right now, 7 of which will make it to the next album, with no tentative title. There are a few I am considering, two of which are in keeping with my previously established tradition of titling albums after Twilight Zone Episodes: “The Path,” and “Come Wander With Me.” Other titles I am considering are “That Night, A Forest Grew,” “Through,” and “Escape.” 

Lyrics are all written, story is cleaned up. Tentative song titles are “Through,” “Cancer for the Cure,” “Branches,” “Come Wander With Me,” “Bridge The Space Between Us,” “Hollow Steps,” “In The Dying Light” and “I Know.” It is too early for me to say whether any of those titles will apply to songs that will make it to the album, but it looks likely that “Branches,” “Through,” “Cancer for the Cure,” and “I Know.” will make it, as I am very happy with the way that they are going.

General sound of this album is “different.” Previous album was slower, more moody, more intense. This one, I am more strongly embracing more creative song structure, sound design and instrumental elaboration. Longer songs. Less defined structure. Some parts are much heavier, some parts are much quieter. Overall, it is much, much more varied. “Branches” has an air of sludge prog, a la Isis, but with more synths and electronic drums than would be expected of that style. “Through” builds almost entirely around percussive instruments and synth sounds, and then melts into a shoegaze style guitar outro. “Cancer for the Cure” is an instrumental, but not in the style of “The Color Out Of Space.” It’s more akin to songs from my Zampano record. All done in modulo, sequenced percussive sounds, delayed leads, akin to Alessandro Cortini’s blindoldfreak EP. “I Know” is the most varied song I’ve ever written. The only work I’ve done on it is in MIDI, as I don’t have anything but a guitar with me in Pennsylvania. Rhodes keyboard, bowed bass, acoustic drums (which I may record myself instead of programming). Really moody, builds into a heavy chorus and then I don’t know.

The rest haven’t had any work done, aside from basic ideas. We’ll see how they develop when I return from Pennsylvania with a clear head and maybe a new computer. I am shooting for December or January for a release, but once again, no guarantees. I’ve got a few other projects that are occupying many of my fingers, including the next edition of Eleven Satellites and a heavier, more industrial project tentatively titled Ohne with Jason from Linnus. 

I am looking for a photographer. I want the artwork for this album to be manipulated photographs instead of purely digital art. I can offer a lump fee, or a percentage of album sales. Neither will be that much. I will take care of all photo manipulation. Contact me via my twitter to discuss. I will provide you contact info from there, if you’re interested.

A few demos in the near future, and I’ll be getting a camera in the near future as well, and will start posting photos of the creative process.

I am thinking about switching to a 28 or 30 hour day. I don’t live a particularly hectic life, and I’m not incredibly busy, but I still feel like I’d be more productive if I lived a longer day. I don’t get much sleep anyway, so I could stay up 24 hours or so, sleep 4 or 6 and be on my way. Eh, I don’t know.

Cold silence has the tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion.

The thing about drum programming is that to make it look like you’ve done something, you actually have to do something. Lame.

44.1 - 96 - 192 and everything in between

Since I started making music, I’ve seen and heard debate about 44.1 versus 48k or 96k or 88.2k sample rates. Some people even argue about the necessity for 192k audio files. I am sick of arguing about it, so here’s a little explanation to help clear up the argument.

Now, I am not an expert. You shouldn’t really trust to fact most of the things I say, but then again I try to explain by metaphor. These aren’t things that should be taken literally, more to supplement what you already may know.

The rule of thumb, when dealing with sample rates, is that the maximum frequency of an audio file is half of the sample rate, i.e. the maximum frequency of a 44.1k audio file is approximately 22,050hz. The highest that the average human can hear is roughly 20,000hz. 

Eine minuten bitte! Uno problemo avec des frequencies. That means that the average person cannot hear the highest frequency possible of a 44.1k audio file, which in turn means that they cannot hear the highest possible frequency available in higher sample rate files. Indeed, most things that make noise have a max frequency of 20,000hz.

Audio purists will tell you that higher sample rates have an effect on what you can hear, and I am inclined to agree. When you start delving into the realm of music where audio meets math, you’ll start to understand how. I really don’t know all that much about it, but it has to do with harmonic frequencies.

Next time you are playing your guitar, noodle around the scale a bit and play a few harmonics, and you’ll start to hear strings other than those you are playing start to vibrate. This is a result of sympathetic resonances. For example, the A string on a guitar (440hz) will resonate with the E string (330hz) because they share an overtone of 1320hz. Basically what this means is that certain frequencies will make other frequencies sound. When translated to the frequency spectrum, it basically means that the frequencies you can’t hear will create sounds you can hear. This will make your audio clearer, because frequencies that may not have been present in the audio will resonate and become more present.

There you go.

Caution, Graphic

I am serious. What I’m about to outline is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had to endure, and I fancy myself a decent descriptive writer, so if you have anything resembling a weak stomach, I suggest you leave.

I’m serious.

Really. I doubt you want to hear about this.

This is your last chance. You’re still reading, so I’ll assume you’re prepared.

As some of you may know, this past Thursday I had my wisdom teeth removed. No, I’m not going to bitch about the surgery itself. It was a necessary procedure to spare myself further trouble in the future. The surgery was fine, and I got vicodin afterward, so I was pretty happy. For 3 or 4 days all I felt like doing was sleeping. All I could eat was pudding and ice cream. This usually wouldn’t be a problem, but as obvious as it’s been, I have been trying to diet, and this kind of shafted it. That is not to seem like I am bitching. I was totally fine with the whole thing, as I slept for the majority of the past week and am fine with going off my diet if it’s necessary.

No, the real problem came in recovery, when I started feeling better, particularly today.

As per usual, when I undergo various medical procedures, there is always some complication or something that will slow down the healing process and make me uncomfortable and inevitably expel vomit at a prodigious level. The latter part has not yet occurred, but I expect that it will happen in about two and a half hours or so, if not sooner. Today seemed like any other day, obviously with allowances made for my recent medical happenings. I went to bed last night, after working late on a song for the album and staying up watching 24. Now, when I say “late,” for the average lump reading this, that means “early,” i.e. I went to bed about 8 a.m.

I woke up today at about 3 when an ex girlfriend called me to ask about something that I don’t now remember. Even then, I was alright, only noticing a bit more pain in the upper right toothless cavity than usual. I was having a bit of trouble closing my mouth, which was a frustrating thing as I’ve been having trouble opening my mouth, so I had to keep it at a rather annoying middle ground that I imagine made me look some hideous, God forsaken mix of a fish and a chipmunk.

Later in the day, however, I noticed an uncomfortable pressure building in my upper right cavity . Nothing unbearable, but it was definitely something that I hadn’t felt before. The right side has been giving me more trouble than the left; in fact, it’s been giving me about enough trouble for the both of them: The only pain I get from opening my mouth is on the right side, it swelled the most on the right side, and now the upper right cavity was feeling funky. Damn my luck.

I went through the day alright. Finished up the mix I had been working on the night before, noodled with the piano, moved my room around a bit and went for a walk, all with the pressure building slowly. Knowing that I’ll be getting some new equipment tomorrow (or this, depending on how your internal and external clocks work) afternoon, as well as having our TV returned fairly early in the morning, I decided to hit the proverbial hay early for me. Laid down at midnight after tearing myself away from a lengthy conversation about detergent and watched South Park while attempting to get to sleep. Fell asleep about 1 and woke up at about 2 with the overwhelming sensation that something was wrong with my upper right cavity. The pressure was incredible, and I couldn’t close my mouth without being so uncomfortable that I needed to open it. I went to the kitchen and got an ice pack and some water and tried resting the pack on my cheek, but to no avail.

My curiosity grew. Like a toddler with his first blister, I was compelled to poke it and feel around to see what the problem was, so, eagerly and with great excitement I slowly slid my finger into my mouth to feel at the location from where the pressure emanated. The suspense built. This felt wrong, like peeling off a scab to let it bleed or looking at your sister undress (I don’t have a sister so don’t read into that), this felt like something I shouldn’t be doing, but had to. With every passing centimeter, the anticipation built. I was like a 6 year old at Christmas, sneaking down the stairs to get a peek that the presents before anyone else until, finally, the moment for which I was presently living arrived. 

My probing digit reached the swelling nuisance. It took me a moment to comprehend what I was feeling. At first, everything seemed normal, but it didn’t take long for me to realize what I was feeling. It was a strange feeling, not dissimilar from a water balloon or orange: the feeling of a membrane barely holding back a volume of liquid. I pressed against the vesicle, assessing the situation and attempting to contemplate not only what I was feeling, but a solution to my predicament. Feeling, however, was not enough. I had to SEE it.

I withdrew my finger, grabbed a small LED booklight that has been sitting on my bedside table, and walked calmly to the bathroom, aglow with thoughts of what I was soon to see. I reached the bathroom, casually opened the door, walked in, shut the door, locked it behind me, and stared at myself in the mirror for a second. I knew what I was soon to do was wrong. I told myself that I should just let it go, and let it heal without my interfering. Prodding around and…feeling…was not going to make it go away. The curious and impulsive me rapidly dismissed these objections and opened my mouth as wide as I could. I, again, slowly inserted my finger into my mouth, this time pulling the cheek out as I went. This allowed me ample room to view the hideous monstrosity. I clicked on the book light and was terrified by what I saw.

Behind my top right molar, as far back in my mouth as it could get before my tonsils, was an abscess, a sac about the size of a small grape, swelling purple and gray. Glistening in the salivated glow of the booklight, it hardly seemed to me that something so small was causing so much pain and discomfort. My finger pressed against it, testing its firmness and position. It behaved as I thought: a bulb of flesh filled with a fluid whose substance was at this point unknown to me. Again, I withdrew my finger and closed my mouth as best I could.

It was apparent to me that there were two courses of action. First, I could leave it alone. This was not going to let me sleep, so I could stay up and call the office early and see about getting an appointment for the later morning and have them deal with it. This was the wisest course of action, so of course, I chose the second option: poke and prod and mess with it and hope that it would resolve itself. I went into my room and sat at my desk, put on music and started to think of ways I could resolve it myself, all the while applying pressure and feeling it grow larger with every minute. I considered, for a moment, sterilizing a needle in some alcohol and poking it, thereby draining it and allowing an orifice through which it could continue to bleed and not fill up. I do, despite what it may seem, possess a few logical brain cells, so I chose not to do this for fear of poking something that I shouldn’t. So, I removed my finger again and I thought and I thought and I thought, and then something happened. Something that would change my life forever.

I heard a tiny popping noise inside my head. Instinctively, I returned my finger to its new home, withdrew it, and saw a substance about one part gray, one part red and one part saliva. I practically galloped to the bathroom. I filled a small cup with water and swirled it around for a moment, and spit, and saw that the blood blister had burst, likely from filling to too large a volume for the flesh to contain. In that moment, it had become obvious to me what caused this situation. I had eaten solid (solid in this case referring to food I had chewed) food too soon after the surgery, some of it had gotten caught in the cavity before it healed, and it got infected. The blood blister was a combination of several things: food (namely macaroni and cheese), pus, blood, salt water (which the doctor wold me would help the healing process) and saliva. 

Suddenly, my mouth filled with the most disgusting taste that I had ever experienced, and hope never to experience again. Imagine taking a bite of macaroni and cheese. Now imagine this macaroni and cheese to be made spoiled milk, boiled in salty water, and mixed with stale american cheese. Now imagine that taste, and combine it with the taste of salt water. I’m not talking fresh water mixed with salt, but stagnate sea water that had been salted even more. Sound bad? Not done yet, that was me being literal. Now combine that taste with the smell of moldy bread in your mouth on which a large volume of blood had congealed and dried. Did I mention that there was pus and probably old blood in this as well? That almost approximates the taste that I experienced at that moment. The smell was almost as unbearable. To borrow a phrase from Rob Sheridan, it was akin to how I imagine the underside of Satan’s nutsack would smell. 

This easily obtained the title of “Most Disgusting Fluid In My Mouth, Ever.” I didn’t vomit, because I knew that would just add another flavor to the nauseating melting pot that my mouth had become. No, I filled my cup with clean water several times over, rinsed and spit out every ounce of goop that flowed endlessly into my gaping maw. It wasn’t done yet, though. Too afraid to insert my finger without assessing the situation first, I performed a quick perimeter sweep with my tongue (that’s right ladies, I’m a bit of a tongue acrobat), and felt the area where once there was a moderately safe, albeit annoying, blood blister. The disappointment that struck me then was nigh on unbearable: the flesh that once contained more ooze than I thought was possible for my body to produce still contained some of the satan fluid.

I again was presented with two options. One, I leave it alone, continue to rinse, and hope that it all gets worked out by the pressure I was applying with my tongue and the constant swishing of water. Two, I apply manual pressure with my finger and force the rest of the fluid out so that I can place gauze on the site and let it heal solidly without filling up again. Obviously, I chose option two, as I didn’t want to let this be up to chance: your mouth isn’t far from your brain, and I am not going to let an infection in my mouth kill me.

Preparing for the worst, I slowly slid my finger along my gum. The tension mounted as I approached the wound. I silently hoped for this to be a simple experiment. I would press on the flesh and the discharge would slowly come out and vacate the sac, allowing it to heal properly and allowing me comfort enough to sleep. I have never been an optimistic person for a reason: nothing ever turns out well when I hope for the best. My finger reached the lesion, and I applied pressure. My worst fears had never been so artfully realized. I felt it as the suppuration squirted out of the abscess and coated the top of my mouth. I knew that in a few short seconds, I would again be overwhelmed with the disgusting taste. There was nothing to prevent it now, so I took the opportunity to apply more pressure, and forced the last of the blood-pus out of the cavity.

I quickly grabbed the cup of water, took a large swig and swished it around, again tasting the hideous essence of infection and age that was in my mouth. I expectorated, observed the contents, and saw that its blood-pus:water:saliva ratio was low, and was relieved. I performed the rinse and spit cycle a few more times until the blood content was low, and took a big drink of water. I had just been through an ordeal.

After my big drink of water, I trudged back to my room, considering whether this was a victory or loss. Sure, I had defeated the Sac-Monster, but it had forever stained my mouth with the taste that to this moment lingers in my chops. For eternity, my food will be tainted with a hint of blood-pus flavor. Colors will not look the same. Flowers will not smell as sweet. My world grew a little darker today, ladies and gentlemen. It is a dim that I do not feel will ever be brightened.